If you were selling something that you built yourself, what would you do? If you sold one, and ten people passed it around and used it, you really want to try and convince me you wouldn't try to get at least a little bit of money from those other 9 people?


^ This. I have absolutely no problems with online activation.

Well, I agree about looking forward to DLC. Fallout had like fifty million DLC releases by Beth. I expect twice as much for Skyrim.

First of all because Skyrim is a better game, secondly because Skyrim is probably the most worthy of holding the "Elder Scrolls" title in my opinion. The only thing that comes close is a heavily modded Morrowind - and now I can get the same experience, but better, and smoother, and more stable, in Skyrim.

When they release the first DLC for this game, I will hit "purchace" and say "Take my money."

I'll buy it even if it's Skyrim: Pets, and I can have a pet bunny in my house.

I added a few things to my post in an edit. Would you have a problem with a used smart TV requiring an activation fee before it would let you access the internet? Many products are sold used. Games aren't the exception.

i didn't consider this im such a tool

Tldr:tldr?

Basically agree with the OP comments
So long as the option to buy the little bits if any are made as a package sometime down the line is there I'm fine. I may not buy it if its as inconsequential as most of Oblivions DLC but the choice should be there
Bethesda has already scored some brownie points by not having pre-order or day 1 DLC. From what they have said they realise how badly Horse Armour was recieved and won't repeat that mistake
1 thing Bethesda can learn from Bioware is how not to package new items. Complete a DLC quest and every new character starts off with a rare and powerful item. Ridiculous. Why does my Dwarf Commoner or City Elf live in a hovel when they own a fortune in DLC items?
Then again the quests to obtain the unique houses in Oblivion were much too easy. Frostcrag Spire and Deepscorn Hollow it was basically spend money and get a great home with some unbalancing features. I'd like to see something like the quest to obtain Warden's Keep in DAO to obtain a special home. Warden's Keep was a massive letdown once you got it but the quest was decent.

Hi Varus,

What you wrote is very true and very interesting but also very off topic.

The major complaint on DLCs is not about the fact that they are DLCs but about their quality...

A good DLC is well...good, a bad one is well...a mockery.

To pay $15 (or more) for Shivering Isle is normal but to pay $5 for a Horse Armor is...a robbery. Sure if you feel it's a robbery then don't pay for it...(that’s pretty much one of your argument)

But the question is: should the players who already have paid $60 for a game buy a Horse Armor DLC for $5 more dollars? I think no...

The same way we can criticize Mr. Tarantino for making two Kill Bill out of one film, the very same way we can critic developpers who make players pay for additional content that could have been included in the original release. Mafia II is a very good example of this and if Bethesda does not do it so often there is a danger for developpers to take us all for what we are not "milking cow"...

So in essence your argument works just fine in general but does not on some specific example...

My 2 cents

I hope Bethesda never sells out. I don't think thats the game designers choice though, but the company.

Whats wrong with New Game DLC? Its an incentive to buy it new, instead of 2nd hand - to hopefully gain more new sales. How is that wrong? Becase you miss out on the CatWoman DLC for free? Did you ever consider that since you got it 2nd hand you got it significantly cheaper and therefore, even if you went and bought that Catwoman DLC, youd still come out ahead? NO? You argue on principle alone? Lol ignored

Yup, principle alone. And in defense of those who will get screwed buying a used game without even knowing it's crippled. Software needs consumer protection. Online activation, online passes, and new game only dlc need to be conspicuously printed on the [censored] box.

You know I have friends that can't afford int0rwebZ like you? You know they have to bring their XBox to my house just to get a NEW game they just bought? You know you sound like a moron? NO?

Honestly I like DLC some of the fallout 3 DLCs were dope

IF theyre so poor they cant afford internet, they have no right buying new games for 60 dollars and then whining over New Game DLC. Defending this behavior is also reprehensible. Be a real friend and set them straight on proper spending habits.

Furthermore, if theyre buying the actual game anyways - Im pretty sure its not crippled WITHOUT a small catwoman DLC since you can still sink dozens of hours into it as batman - as it was designed from the beginning. Telling me that you spent 40 dollars to get Batman on craigslist, and then saying "WTF crippled game new game DLC not included wah wah wah" is completely, and entirely dishonest. You still go the game for 33% off. Perhaps there is a trade off when buying things used. This happens in the automobile industry too. Those 10yr/100k mile warranties new cars come with sometimes don't transfer if the vehicle is sold second hand. And its completely legal. Gonna tell me its a crippled purchase now? Probably. Being underage must be nice.

You have no substance to your arguments when put to a practicality test, and you think this is ok. You aren't worth my time anymore.

An early poster pretty much hit the nail on the head: DLC makes you feel conned.

Unless you earn a lot of money, have your parents buy your games, or are used to spending a large budget on gaming, then you become pretty aware of how far a buck should get you.

I don't want to hate on ALL DLC, because there has been some good stuff out there. Bethesda's done alright with their questline DLC, but let's face it, the majority of DLC out there is frighteningly bad. Dragon Age sold an item pack for 2 dollars that was largely just some silly items sold only by the trader in your camp and had no useful purpose in the game what-so-ever; in Mass Effect 3, singular minor retextures for the models used for the recruitable companions (and not even all of them, only a handful at a time) were also sold at standard DLC price.

What's worse is that DLC is sunken money. You can't return it. You can't resell it or trade it for credit at your local game exchange. You click that 'Ok' button, and the money's gone, and you're left with what you get. There are no previews, no trials, no try-and-then-buy; often, the description text is incredibly vague, and doesn't even include screenshots.

On the question of whether or not I'd rather "have the cave" or not have it at all if the only way to explore it would be to purchase DLC, I'd rather NOT have the cave. Putting the cave there makes me angry because there is absolutely no way for me to get into it through normal gameplay, and it tells me that the developers knew the content was planned (and likely had it finished) at the time of release but chose to try and get away with charging me 61.99 + tax instead of 59.99 + tax. I get to sit there with this game that I otherwise would have quite enjoyed, feeling like I had just done something wrong because my game seems broken and some of my goals are now unattainable. If I were to go, "But its only 2 dollars!" and then bought the DLC, and found it was only a 30-minute dungeon crawl, I'd be even more upset because I had just paid a premium for something totally unenjoyable that I now knew I could have done without -- which brings us back to that whole "I feel conned" thing.

You can't complain to game companies about it. You can't write them a letter, civil or not, and expect to see change. They won't refund your money, and 3 months later, they will crank out another piece of DLC exactly like the first. Now not only do you feel conned, but you feel like the company you once supported has no interest in the slightest in showing some integrity or responsibility.

Unfortunately, we live in a Farmville decade where this sort of thing passes as good ol', red-blooded, American greatness. There's no danger of a boycott or a loss of sales because hardcoe consumers who normally buy things like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, TES, Fallout, etc. are being replaced by the hordes of Bejewelers. (I'll drop it there, since we know this line of discussion leads to a hardcoe-vs-casual fight, but it is what it is.)

Your ENTIRE argument/rant is hinged on this one, citation-less point. Interesting.

Wrong. Please learn to read.

The line you are quoting is meant to explain that had I run into a situation where there was a cave in my full 60-dollar game that was blocked off with a sign saying "Buy this DLC first", I would have felt cheated and that I would have suspected they had already had the content completed. They certainly already knew it was going to exist.

Even if they did NOT have it completed, but were forced to push the game out due to deadlines, where does a company get off charging me an extra 2 dollars to complete my game? Yeah, it's legal, but its not responsible or ethical.

You must have ignored the OPs post to post some BS like that then. He put it in plain english how planning works when it comes to game design. Besides if you whine so damn hard over 60 dollars you should've, according to your own logic, backed out when it hit 60 dollars. Remember when games were 50 a pop? Or were you too young to play/buy them then?

Thanks to kids and soccer moms only the game industry gets off with this.
Tell a customer like Merrill Lynch that they should buy DLC because your awesome Meganotepad ++2 is unfinished and has to be released buggy without all features requested.

I responded according to the flow of discussion. My complaint isn't about 60 dollars, its about the base price, mentioned at sixty dollars, plus extra for content which should have been originally packaged. Irregardless, this entire little tangent between you and me is getting off topic, especially since I was addressing -bad- DLC in general and not just at-releast DLC or even all DLC.

Also, please do not insult people just because you don't agree with them. It shows your maturity.

Ok, that just made me laugh. +1, good sir. ;P

I like the idea of dlc in theory but it always gets abused in practice. You could rationalize it as the developer getting more regular cash flows and keeping the team together between point releases. I'd love that. Skyrim is elder scrolls 5.0. Minor dlc released through the year refining the game with major dlc every 6 months. At the end of two years yah have twice the game that you originally bought. Three years later the engine is improved to 6.0 and we get the new release cycle.

Seemed like this would really make sense for games like half-life that are story-driven. The expansions on the original game were boring because they rehashed the same story. The sequel was awful and the episodes were shorter than a full game but took as long to develop.

I hate the sense that there are developers making games for love and money and there are suits between them and us who add nothing to the process but overhead and leave us with a less than optimal situation.

True technical limitations or are these people bad at their jobs? Hard to say. But it feels like dlc is just a way to tack 50% onto the price of a game for less than 50% content.

And if it wasnt available to be originally packed? As in not finished? Quit assuming all dlc is finished before the game is set to be printed onto a disc. It shows your lack of maturity. Besides, its not an insult to ask if you were too young to play on Original Xbox or PS2 - I was getting the impression you were with how you wildly assume things.

Then you go and pull a reddit +1 when a guy boogeymans "kids and soccermoms".

I see your filled with meaningfu (mature)l discussion.

agree 100%

Ok, I'm seeing where you are now. There are a couple things I'd like to point out, but we more or less agree. First of all, I understand that there's a serious lack of consumer protection for gaming software, but you should also notice that this hasn't always been the case. Consumer protections for software have actually been eroded by court decisions and amendments to the copyright act (if we talk law, assume I'm talking about the US, every other country in the world notwithstanding). Why would that happen for gaming software, but not for other things like TVs?

Because games and tvs are different, and gaming companies have been able to successfully show as much in court. Think about it, what's the difference between buying a new TV and a new Game? Well, not much. But what's the difference between buying a Used TV and a Used Game? There's a big difference. The used TV is used, there are fewer years of its life left, there might be some damage, the warranty probably won't transfer, etc. For all this, you get a discount. But a game? A used game is exactly identical to a new game, except it costs less. Consumers realize this very quickly and start playing games so that they can finish it, and then turn around and sell it to someone else. The next user doesn't lose anything, though.

So while I understand your worry about consumer protection, there's also a glaring fact that there's no producer protection in software gaming. Their primary market can literally trade their own product amongst themselves, and cut the producer out entirely after round 1. Because of this, it makes a lot more sense than you think for the produce to attach incentives for people to buy new. Among those, "free" DLC that you have to pay for if you don't buy new, or activation fees are perfectly normal. In effect, if you buy the game used, you still get the core game, but slightly less. That's exactly what you would get if you bought the TV used, the same core TV but slightly less.

Lastly, you'll be happy to know that if software does any tangible harm to your system, you can actually sue them. You sue them for trespass to pvssyls (of sorts), which is a tort. It bypasses contract things, it's an entirely different area of law. So, the good news is that if the game does wipe your HDD, then yes, you can sue them for that, regardless of what the EULA says.




If you aren't the sort of person that can afford high speed internet, then unfortunately, you are not the market to which these games are targeted. This is a constant gripe that people raise about Steam. "I can't afford an always-on web connection!" Well, for one thing, I don't believe you. Most of the gamers on these boards have cable or DSL. But for another thing, if you really can't afford that, then you probably can't afford a pc that can run the game either. You are not their market, they aren't intending to sell to you. That sounds harsh, but it's true. Just like I'm not the market for a Cadillac.

And don't be fooled, that's what video games are. They're Cadillacs. They aren't food, they aren't water, they aren't shelter, or electricity. They are toys, luxuries, the Cadillac of electronics. They are in no way necessarily. If you can't afford them, and especially if you can afford the game but not the extra features... well there's really no room to complain there. Some people can, and that's why they get extra stuff.



I understand how seeing a door in the game with the sign "DLC only can enter here" is frustrating, but I don't see how that's really any different, in substance, than if there had not been a door there at all. They're marketing that DLC by placing the door there, and whether you can see the door or not you still can't access that area without the DLC. So to me, it's just a matter of willpower. Are you so enticed by that door that you feel you are being pressured into buying the DLC? I would think not. Just like how a Doritos commercial consistently fails to entice me to buy their chips.

I don't think it should be characterized as "unfinished content that should have been included." Instead, it's additional content, not included, sold separately. However, you can still see where it fits in the set, just like you can see with other series of toys. LEGO sets are famous for this, the scene on the box is about 150% of what you actually get in the box. That ship in the background? Sold separately. The little castle that is being attacked? Sold separately.

That's how it works.

Someone mentioned board-games, and how much it would svck if there was a giant hole right in the middle of the board-game. That might be true, but I think a missing DLC isn't a giant hole in the middle of your video game. It's a door, on the side of a building, tucked away somewhere. It's off to the side, and certainly not giant by anyone's definition. And there are certainly lots of board-games that have small spaces off to one side or another where you can fit an add-on set if you want to buy extras. In fact, one of my favorites, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers_of_Catan is a great example. Their board is designed so that you never finish it. You can keep adding on to it as many sets as you feel like buying. Is that a scam, or a con? No.




Skyrim was not made to order.

Actually they can afford to buy a new game for 60 dollars they just can't afford to pay 50 dollars a month for internet. They also have a droid but no cable TV. What world do you live in where you can either have all luxuries or none? Then you go on to make a bad comparison. The correct comparison would be buying a used car and having to pay the manufacturer a fee to reactivate the power windows. If you buy a lemon car you have rights to return it as well. Not so with games. Then you go on to attack me personally, suggesting I'm underage and simply saying I have no argument rather than actually supporting yours. Warranties being voided =/= features missing. Would you buy a used smart TV if you had to pay Sony an activation fee just to use the internet because its not new? People act like software is some how exempt from common business ethics. Oh wait, it is, because there are no laws to protect the consumer (in the USA). . .



Many games come with DLC content already on disc. Google it. So his argument is not flawed.



Sometimes used games don't cost less. Sure the new game DLC will probablydevalue them, but why even allow stores to sell games used since according to the EULAs we are just getting a liscense to use it? It all just kinda smells funny.



There is more producer protection and almost no consumer protection. I don't know if you are talking about piracy or people trading actual discs. If you are talking piracy then they do have recourse.



Securom. EA stealth installed that junk on people's systems, and it did do harm to the systems. It made DVD burners inoperable, couldn't be uninstalled, among a few other things. There was a class action lawsuit. I'm not sure of the details but I'm think EA won. CCP (makers of Eve Online) deleted boot.ini (a crucial windows system file). They handled that well though and people weren't that mad about it.

Games are luxuries. We do agree on that. However just because someone can't budget in cable tv and internet doesn't mean they can't afford to buy a console every few years along with some games. My point is that these people are literally not getting what they paid for.




Dragon Age felt like there were holes in the board. Settlers (I have most of the expansions) doesn't have holes in the middle of its board. The lack of additional content doesn't get thrown in your face while you are in the middle of a game. Anyway your OP has plenty of good points. My problem is only when people feel like they've just been conned or tricked into something. I'm not saying DLC is a con, but somewhere along the line there need to be disclaimers that are easy for the average person to see on the box. Just like physical products must to say "whatever is not included, sold seperately". In the past few years I've gone from thinking DLC is awesome to being very wary of it, because of feeling conned so often. Anyways I've said pretty much all I have to say on it. I just wanted to raise awareness, so to speak.

.